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The 2,200 years of Turkestan history have played host to some of the most important civilizations in the world. The area is a wide expanse of territory, stretching from the Caspian Sea and the southern part of the Ural Mountains in the west, Siberia in the north, Iran, Afghanistan and Tibet in the south, and China and Mongolia to the east.

Today, the part of Turkestan that includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan is known as West Turkestan, and the area that has been under Chinese captivity for the last two centuries is known as East Turkestan. The geographical and strategic importance of Turkestan is obvious from the great interest shown in the area by Russia and China, the two regional superpowers. Russia and China have both played very important roles in Turkestan history, which is why it is divided into two parts today.

Behind those two countries’ refusal to give the region up, no matter what cost, is its strategic position and its rich underground resources. For Russia, the Turkish states in the west, and for China, East Turkestan, are important reserves of raw materials.

Following the Bolshevik Revolution, Russia set up a powerful control mechanism in West Turkestan where states consisting of different Turkish tribes were set up. The area was given the name “Soviet Central Asia,” in place of the name Turkestan by which the land had been known for hundreds of years.

The intention was to do away with the Turks’ shared national consciousness. The most important element of Russia’s policy in the region was to eliminate Islam entirely. Throughout this period, a number of sanctions were employed in an attempt to destroy the Turks’ national cultures; mosques and places offering religious instruction were closed down and religion was entirely divorced from social life. Crimean Turks were rounded up and exiled to Siberia in the course of a single night, and Russians were brought in to occupy their homes and lands. Furthermore, artificial ethnic conflicts were incited between the nations of Central Asia. Another of the Soviet regime’s measures aimed at assimilating the Turks was to develop a second language alongside the mother tongues of the Muslims of the Caucasus and Central Asia. It is for this reason that Russian is now preferred to Turkish as a means of communication between the communities in question.

East Turkestan suffered similar oppression to that experienced in West Turkestan, but in an even more violent form. In the middle of the 1700s, East Turkestan was invaded by the Chinese. The political changes that occurred in the region (and the world as a whole) prevented the desire of the people of East Turkestan for independence from being translated into reality. China-a country with a total land area of some 10 million square kilometers-tried to exterminate the people of East Turkestan (also a giant nation of 2 million square kilometers) by its policies of oppression and isolation.

Just like the Russians in West Turkestan, the Chinese also changed the region’s name. The new name they used was the “Uighur Autonomous Region of Sinkiang.” They then began to implement the same kinds of policies used by other imperialist nations. A ruthless war was waged against the local people’s beliefs, customs, and religious practices. Ethnic discrimination became rife, demands for independence were ferociously suppressed, defenseless people were exiled from their land, and Chinese settlers were brought in to replace them. The brutality known as “Chinese torture” and cruelty soon became reality.

Before going into the details of the oppression, (of which most people are very unaware), we will review East Turkestan’s historical, geo-strategic and geo-political position.

EAST TURKESTAN: THE CRADLE OF TURKISH-ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION

The history of the lands of Turkestan goes back to the third century B.C. (the Gokturk and Hun period). The area has been the Turkish homeland since very early in history, and Islamic territory for a thousand years. Although no state or khanate bearing the name of Turkestan was ever established, the area in question, which makes up a large part of Central Asia, has always been called by that name because it has been a Turkish settlement area since very ancient times. Researchers describe East Turkestan in particular as one of the first centers of civilization and, as an area where, due to its geo-strategic position, Western and Eastern cultures intermingled.

These lands, which have been home to great empires all through history, became an indispensable part of the Islamic world after the Turks converted to Islam during the reign of Caliph Abd al-malik Marwan (b. 646/647-d. 705). The years between 751-1216 A.D. in particular, after Satuk Bughra Khan (—/d. 955-6) had accepted Islam, are known as the golden age of East Turkestan. Throughout that period, students from all over the world came to study at the renowned religious schools and educational institutions of Turkestan. Statesmen and scientists who would help shape the world were also trained there. The Turks who migrated from the region to all corners of the world carried Islam with them to many different countries.

The Qarakhan, Ghazna, Khwarezm-Shah, Seljuq and Saidi tribes that were born in Turkestan set up states under the banner of Islam and provided outstanding examples of Turkish-Islamic culture, thus rendering a great service to human kind. Prominent statesmen such as Satuk Bughra Khan (—/d. 955-956), Seljuq Bey (—/d. 1007), Mahmud Ghaznavi (b. 998-d. 1030), Malik Shah (b. 1055-d. 1092), Timur (b. 1336-d. 1405), and Babur Shah (b. 1483-d. 1530) were among the great figures who emerged from those lands. Imam Bukhari, Imam Tirmidhi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Abu Nasr al-Farabi (Avennasar), Narshaki, Zamakhshari and Marginani, who enriched the libraries of Islam with their works, were among the great thinkers who forged the way for other scientists of the world. Furthermore, Makhmud al-Kashgari, author of the Diwan Lughat at-Turk, Yusuf Khass Khadjib, author of the Kutadgu Bilig, and Ahmad Yuknaki, the writer of the great Atabet’ul Haqayiq, also lived in Turkestan, the cradle of Turkish-Islamic civilization. Scholars such as these, of whom we have cited only a few, are sufficient to demonstrate the importance of East Turkestan to the Turkish and Islamic worlds.

EAST TURKESTAN IS NOT PART OF CHINA

One of the claims made by China in order to conceal its human rights violations and repression in East Turkestan is that the area “forms part of Chinese territory,” for which reason events in East Turkestan “need to be considered a domestic Chinese affair.” However, historical sources disprove that claim. First and foremost is the Great Wall of China, built by the Chinese to prevent attacks on them by other nations. This was the first time that China had put up an official border between itself and the peoples living around it. East Turkestan falls outside that border.5 Moreover, many sources describe the Jade Gate (so called because of the many jade stones found there), as being at China’s westernmost border. One of these sources that describes the gate as opening into East Turkestan is actually a Chinese book, the New China Atlas, published in Shanghai in 1939.6

The region between the Great Wall of China and the Caspian Sea, Siberia and Iran, and the borders of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir and Tibet has been known as Turkestan in not only the earliest Islamic records, but also in old Iranian and Indian accounts. This is also accepted by a great many Western historians. Nikita Bichurin, one of the earliest known Turcologists, has supported that historical truth in these terms: “A nation lives between the Caspian Sea and the Koh-i Nur Mountains. They speak Turkish and believe in Islam. They introduce themselves as Turkish and describe their country as Turkestan.”7 Because these lands were given the name of “Xinjiang” or “Sinkiang” (meaning “new borders”) following their occupation by China does not change that historical reality.

Over the 2,000 or so years, between 206 B.C. and 1759 A.D., East Turkestan was able to maintain its independence for more than 1,800 years. During the periods when it was linked to the Turkish Hun and Gokturk khanates, local administration lay entirely in the hands of the people of East Turkestan. Between 751 and 1216 it was totally independent. During those periods China periodically occupied East Turkestan in order to win control of the Silk Road. Yet these occupations were always short-lived, and China was never able to establish hegemony over East Turkestan in the true sense of the word. In the 2,200-year history of East Turkestan, (if we take into account the occupation that started in 1934 and which is still continuing today) a little more than 570 years have been spent under Chinese occupation.8

There are also geographic facts that disprove the claim that East Turkestan is part of China. The make-up of the population of East Turkestan (its language, religion, ethnic origins, plus its national and spiritual heritage) all reveal a picture of total independence from China. Panku, the great historian of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. — 220 A.D.), expresses this fact:

As for clothing, costume, food and language, the barbarians [Uighurs] are entirely different from the Middle Kingdom… Mountains, valleys and the great desert separate them from us.9

That difference was preserved throughout history. Neither was there any assimilation, even during the periods under Chinese occupation. Today, 54 percent of East Turkestan’s estimated population of 17 million are Muslims, including 47 percent of the Uighurs and 7 percent of the Kazakhs. (This figure is from statistics issued by China in 1997, and is not accepted as reliable by international organizations because of China’s biased attitude toward this issue). The Uighurs, who make up a large part of the Muslim population, bear no ethnic, religious or linguistic similarity to the Chinese. The Uighur alphabet consists of Arabic letters, they are all Muslim, and they have been living by Turkish customs and beliefs for more than 1,000 years.

Oll of these historical, geographical and sociological facts make it clear that East Turkestan is not part of China, but rather a separate region that China has sought to assimilate. Even under the harshest and most difficult conditions, the people of East Turkestan never accepted Chinese rule, and frequently sought to regain their independence, at times even resorting to armed struggle. For example, when East Turkestan fell under Manchu rule between 1759 and 1862, the Muslim people rose up and rebelled against the Chinese more than 40 times.

Why is China so determined to maintain its position on East Turkestan in the face of all the facts? This should be discussed before turning to the long years of Chinese oppression